The IT consultant even likes to work in the standing position much of the time, towering over his drafting board.

So leave it to this chess devotee to invent a way for chess aficionados to indulge in their passion while thinking on their feet.

He’s hoping to checkmate their imaginations with Vertical Magnetic Chess, which relocates the game of chess away from its customary usual horizontal mode.

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With Bailey’s straight-up approach, amateurs and pros alike can make all the right moves and not be stuck hunched over a table staring at a conventional chess board.

“I do enjoy many things standing up, and coming up with the vertical chess was a natural inclination for me,” said the Blue Bell resident. “I grew up playing chess and have always enjoyed playing and competing with other connoisseurs of strategy games. It’s a little bit different than playing on a table but you get the same perspective.”

Vertical chess boards that use standard game pieces on ledges or shelves have been around for a while. But Bailey’s patent-pending magnetic spin takes up less wall space, weighs less than half a pound and allows for a more fixed placement of the pieces.

“If you‘re in a bar and playing darts or something, I was thinking of a board that could stay on the wall, be autonomous and take up very little space,” said Bailey. “It is a great way to stand-up or sit down based on your preferences and enjoy conversation, all the while having the pieces and board suspended on the wall, thereby taking up less room than setting up on tables. You can have a couple of beers and be done with a couple of chess games in much less time. The board is always accessible, and if manufactured in a tasteful fashion, becomes a great addition to a game room.”

Suitable for bars, taverns and your average man cave, the magnetic designs can be customized and generally feature an acrylic mirror that mounts with Velcro.

Taking a grassroots approach to stirring up interest in his concept, Bailey turned to the crowd-funding website Kickstarter.com, where would-be entrepreneurs go to solicit some financial support for their ideas.

“It’s a little more homegrown and not as corporate as some other ways of doing it. Essentially you post your idea on there, and I also created prizes for certain donation levels and got some exciting reactions,” noted the U.S. Army veteran who earned a National Defense Service Ribbon for Active Duty Stateside during Operation Desert Storm.

Bailey was also featured on Quirky.com, where ideas are voted on by readers of the website, as well as by employees of the company, which ultimately will design, manufacture and market products, paying the inventor up to 30 percent of resulting revenue.

As it turned out, venture capitalists weren’t exactly beating a path to his door, but that didn’t discourage Bailey in the least.

While the patent process is in the pipeline, he’s crafting magnetic boards and wooden vertical models as well by request.

“Hundreds of people on Quirky loved the idea. I know it is a niche market. The patent pending is enough to protect my idea and I don’t have to be fully patented to go out and sell the boards,” Bailey noted. “I can be selling them organically, like a craft.

Once the patent is a done deal, Bailey and his lawyer will choose a manufacturer for his product, he said.

“I suspect there will be multiple companies in the U.S. to consider. I’m a veteran and I’d like to stay here in the USA and not go overseas to make these, but I’ll let the attorney dictate that,” Bailey said. “But if I can have ‘made in the USA’ stamped on there, it will be there.”